THE SISTERHOOD OF ZURI
With a single silhouette and a variety of bold colors and wild prints, Zuri is conquering the fashion world “just one dress” at a time.
Co-owner Ashleigh Miller, who is based in Nairobi, and her New York partner, Sandra Zhao, scout markets in Tanzania monthly, buying up cut pieces of wax cotton African Kitenge fabric for their small-batch runs that feature prints with whimsical names, including Twinsies (with a repeating double bird motif), and the most popular dress to date, Hypnosis (boasting a graphic orange-turquoise circular print).
“We buy whatever pops out at us — fabrics that have a sense of humor,” Zhao says. “We like pop art and bold, clean prints.
The A-line, knee-length, threequarter-sleeve shirt dress is sewn in Kenya. The silhouette was originally constructed by Zhao’s personal tailor in Nairobi where, she says, it’s not uncommon and is a budgetfriendly option for some women to have their clothes custom-made. The dress was refined for production with the addition of side pockets.
Zuri has already made a colorful splash in the United States, and will host a four-day pop-up in San Francisco beginning Thursday, Oct. 19.
Even with “one dress,” the line has quickly garnered return buyers. “We do have lots of repeat customers,” says Miller. “Many of them are on their third or fourth dress, and some are up to 10-plus.” Miller explains that some buyers wear them as a uniform: “We’ve heard from lots of customers — attorneys, teachers, designers — who say they wear a different Zuri dress to work every day. It’s easy, it’s usually appropriate, and it’s comfortable, so it speeds up the process of deciding what to wear in the morning.”
While labeled a dress, the Zuri comes with a card illustrating that it can be worn four ways. Mission resident Rachel Khong, author of “Goodbye, Vitamin” and co-founder of co-working space the Ruby, owns three Zuris and says she usually wears them as a skirt by unbuttoning the top and tying the sleeves around her waist.
“It’s like ‘The Sisterhood of (the) Traveling Pants.’ It kind of fits everybody, and you immediately look cool. I think it’s maximally cool for the minimum effort.” Khong wore a Zuri on her book tour (she requested a specific fabric to match her book’s theme) and to a photo shoot for New York Magazine’s blog, Grub Street, explaining that the Zuri is a dress “you can eat a lot in.”
“There’s something so liberating and exciting about wearing a big print,” says S.F. writer Audrey Ferber. “I like that they have names, they seem to have a point of a view and they’re funny.” Buying a goldhued Jupiter adorned with twirling black planets took her out of a staid clothing routine.
“I felt like I was in a black/gray jail,” she says about her pre-Zuri wardrobe. “They are really an antidote to all my 20 pairs of black pants.”
Former Gap executive Priscilla Otani, an artist and partner at Arc Gallery & Studios, uses the dresses for travel. “I like that they put a lot of thought into one design. And there were practical things, like the fact that it’s a dress with sleeves.”
The globe-trotting Otani, who lives in Glen Park, owns seven dresses. She says they’re great for San Francisco’s mild weather but adaptable to other climates. “I wore it in New York this summer and it was comfortable. I was at a deli and the waitress came up and started touching me and asking me where I got the Zuri. She kept asking me until I gave her the website.”
Bridget Wagner, a doctor who lives in Twin Peaks, was given the Aquatic Life coral-hued print dress as a gift. While she can’t wear it to work, she admires the company’s goal to support sustainability and wears the Zuri mostly for special occasions.
She checks the Zuri site weekly for new patterns that evoke a trip she took to Kenya: “It’s kind of a departure from my usual style.”
So how does “just one dress” grow? The company opened a brick-and-mortar in New York’s West Village in August based on growing customer demand. “We did a pop-up in June,” says Zhao, “and the response was overwhelming. It was exciting for us to interact (with customers). There was a positive, genuine feel of community.”
The original seven-person workshop run by Zhao’s tailor is still in use, but with a growing demand, Zuri now partners with factories (each personally checked to ensure fair working conditions), including Wildlife Works. “They create alternative income sources instead of poaching and logging,” says Zhao. Each dress is in production for a couple of weeks, with the duo returning for more if the fabric is a hit. Zuri’s goal is to feature 20 to 30 prints per month.
Zhao said for the holidays, Zuri will offer shirts and dresses in a custom-designed block print commissioned by a young Kenyan artist. It’s part of her mission to honor the dresses’ origin. “We want to be respectful of the culture and history.”
Mission District artist and dancer Soad Kader has a cultural connection to the dresses. She and her family came to the United States from Egypt when she was 8, and she identifies as American and African.
Kader, who believes in “conscious shopping,” says she feels good supporting a women-owned company. “I have been interested in collecting African fabrics for a long time. I use pieces in my artwork.”
Kader says she “lives, breathes and eats color,” and has a quickly growing Zuri collection, now up to four dresses. “I’m just going to say it: They are very addictive.”